It's the oldest, simplest, yet probably still the most effective method for making sure you get everything done: the humble to-do list. But is there a way to get more out of your daily check list? We asked the experts: How can we make our to-do lists better, how can we streamline them to get things done faster? Is is possible to make a to-do list fun?

More and more, I’m getting a strong Zoom vibe from Wells. Zoom’s whole shtick in the comics is that he torments Flash in order to make him a stronger, better hero. You have to wonder how much Wells with his knowledge of the future and potential speed powers is manipulating these events in order to accelerate Barry’s growth. Maybe it isn’t simply coincidence that so many criminals gained superhuman powers, or that one of them happened to be Barry’s old bully. There are a lot of areas where this show is extremely faithful to the source material. Early on I was afraid that slavish devotion would hurt the show. But when it comes to Wells, it’s hard to predict what direction this series is headed, and I really like that sense of unpredictability.

Back in October 2013, Apple had officially announced its partnership with GT, and the two companies were going to work together on setting up a factory in Mesa, Arizona where the latter would be producing Sapphire glass panels for iPhones. Apple expected to create more than 2,000 jobs in Mesa in engineering, manufacturing, and construction through this move. The city supported Apple’s move by providing it with 100% renewable source of energy — which required the city to create a new power station, reduce the property taxes and more.

The spokeswoman, Nairi Hourdajian, said the company does not do “oppo research” of any sort on journalists, and has never considered doing it. She also said Uber does not consider Lacy’s personal life fair game, or believe that she is responsible for women being sexually assaulted. (Lacy initially declined to comment on Michael’s remarks; she denounced them in a column after this story was published.)

Mobile messaging is the hot topic of the year for tech. Canada-based startup Kik , which has largely flown under the radar, is making a big move to win the race in the West after announcing a $38.3 million Series C funding round and its first acquisition.

I’m still left with unresolved questions . We need to know that we can trust him and his company with our locations and our safety. We want to know that they won’t ever use the data generated by our movements or pickups against us or the people who represent us. We want the company to willingly disclose data about how it provides accessible transit options to our neighbors and embrace transparency about its interactions with customers, regulators and our communities. We want to know that the people we’re trusting with data about our lives aren’t “morally bankrupt.”

Apple also wants to make sure that developers pay attention to how their apps work with corresponding iPhone apps—like most other smart watches, the Apple Watch requires a smartphone to function, in this case an iPhone. In the guidelines, the company stresses that any app on the wrist “complements your iOS app; it does not replace it.” This could encourage developers to think about how they can bring functions to Apple Watch apps that might be more appropriate on the wrist than on the smartphone screen, such as certain kinds of context-aware alerts.

Performance can also be improved somewhat, at least when using hard disk drives, since any drive in the array can be accessed to read data, and one drive may offer lower seek or rotational latency due to the position of its drive heads. Write performance is usually lowered, however, because data is mirrored to all of the drives in the array. The total capacity of a RAID 1 volume will equal the capacity of a single drive on account of the redundancy: If two 1TB drives are used, the total capacity of the RAID 1 volume will still be 1TB.

There’s no way to anticipate the emotional impact of leaving your home planet. You look down at Earth and realize: You’re not on it. It’s breathtaking. It’s surreal. It’s a “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” kind of feeling. But I’ve spent a total of 55 days in space, over the course of five missions for NASA, and I’ve learned that being out there isn’t just a series of breathtaking moments. It’s a mix of the transcendently magical and the deeply prosaic. It can be crowded, noisy, and occasionally uncomfortable. Space travel—at least the way we do it today—isn’t glamorous. But you can’t beat the view!

Prezi , the cloud presentation platform that has been gradually eating away at Microsoft’s Powerpoint market share for the last few years, is poised to become a far more mainstream product than some might have previously thought. It’s making two major announcements today. The first — announced today on stage at Slush in Helsinki — is that it has secured a $57 million growth investment from Spectrum Equity, a growth equity firm, with participation from existing investor, Accel Partners, to accelerate its growth.

But TV ratings are about a lot more than selling ads. Netflix viewership data would give traditional TV networks a better sense of how popular their shows are on the platform and, perhaps more importantly, how essential they are to the overall Netflix experience. This could affect negotiations for licensing programming, especially as more content companies such as CBS and Comcast launch their own streaming services. Networks already regularly leverage the popularity of their programming to extract higher fees from cable operators in very public spats, so they’d likely have no problem pulling Netflix into a similar scrum.

The Jaguar Land Rover JustDrive app lives on the driver's smartphone and transmits data to the host vehicle via USB, but also requires a Bluetooth connection to relay the sound for calls and audio sources through the vehicle's speakers. When the app establishes contact with the vehicle, it briefly displays a welcome screen that cycles through a few bits of relevant information (such as current weather conditions, commute information, and news) before the driver hits the road. The software then drops into the JustDrive dashboard.

Though I will say that Dominic himself seemed to be a lot more animated in this episode than in previous installments. His anger over "Detective Riley" at the end gave him a new spark. For usually being a low-key "We all die in the end" guy, he got pretty heated. I guess having two of his goons (from an empire that's now swallowed up other gangs of different ethnicities) fail him within such a short time span was too much. He even got to add a little tag to the end of his usual catchphrase - "Better to go out on top."

Across the iTunes and Mac App Stores today, a minor but also notable change is taking place with regard to how Apple is marketing its iOS and Mac applications. Instead of free apps being labeled as “FREE,” the download button now reads “GET.” The change likely has to do with increased pressures from the European Commission, which this summer , succeeded in forcing Google to relabel apps that offer in-app purchases.

BEIJING—Xiaomi Inc. and an affiliated fund plan to invest $300 million with Baidu Inc.’s online video arm, its second move in a week to tap content for devices. Xiaomi, which is China’s largest smartphone brand by market share, said on Wednesday it would team with Shunwei Capital, which was set up by Xiaomi Chairman and Chief Executive Lei Jun, to make the investment in video portal iQiyi.com. It declined to disclose financial...

Update: Well that was very fast indeed. Jolla’s Indiegogo campaign to build an open source iPad alternative — taking its Sailfish OS onto the tablet form factor — has passed its initial funding target of $380,000 with around 2,450 backers putting in cash. And it did so in double-quick time, taking just over two hours from the campaign’s launch. There’s still another 21 days left on the campaign so expect Jolla to flesh out some stretch goals. Original post follows below…

Erickson told The Wall Street Journal that, using the Oculus Rift, viewers are able to look around a scene in "Banshee Chapter" and feel as if they're actually in the movie. He said the film and technology are still "early" and "rough," but he expects it to improve over time, according to the Journal.

Form isn’t an app maker. That is, you don’t end up with an app that’ll do much on its own, or that you can distribute. Instead, you’ll get a rough prototype — a feel for whether or not a potential design (and many of its nuances, like the specifics of how an animation flows) are heading in the right direction. If doodling on a napkin is a 1 and actually coding the app is a 10, building a prototype with Form is somewhere around a 6.

I was really happy to see Dichen Lachman --reuniting with her former Dollhouse writers turned SHIELD EP’s Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, along with Reed Diamond -- pop up this week (oh, and here's where I'll gratuitously recommend The 100 to those who haven't been watching it, where Lachman has had a cool recurring role). While the episode would end with her being killed, it would also involve a great reveal – that she was Skye’s mother! As we hurtle into this hidden city storyline, finding out Skye’s mom was “special” and had abilities of her own, including the ability to touch the Diviner without harm and to not age, once more underlines Skye’s own mysterious nature. Skye has yet to actually show off any powers or abilities, but it seems almost a certainty that is coming.

And this argument is apparently going over well as CipherCloud told me they now have 3M users and they count among their clients highly security conscious organizations including they tell me five of the top banks, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. Of course, they didn’t offer names, but you get the idea that companies who have a stake in security in the cloud are using their service.

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TechCrunch has established itself as a leading resource for startup-related news, so I thought it would be fun to analyze every TechCrunch headline to see what we might learn about the startup funding environment over the past few years. Without further ado, I present the TechCrunch Bubble Index , or as I like to call it, the TCBI:

"Ask Jeeves" showed the Winchester brothers getting back to work. They're actively searching for cases and stopping monsters. It's what they were doing before episode 200, and it's clear that Dean wants to keep moving forward and staying busy. We see him working on the Impala again, and it strikes me as both a way to keep occupied and to get some alone time. Despite his reassurances, not all seems well in the state of Dean. I just wish he'd talk to his brother about it.

Below, we have republished our original Grand Theft Auto 5 review, with added evaluation of the new material found in the Xbox One and PS4 version. The updated text is based on a retail PS4 copy of Grand Theft Auto 5, provided by Rockstar.
With the release of Grand Theft Auto 5 on PS4 and Xbox One, Grand Theft Auto has never looked so good and, thanks to the new first-person mode, the series has never been more gruesome. The addition of the (optional) first-person mode makes this more than a simple HD port of the original release, giving you an excuse to explore Los Santos and its surrounding areas once again. GTA Online and its multitude of content updates are also included at launch.
GTA 5 is presented in full 1080p with high-def texture resolution and increased draw distance. Lights show natural reflection from impressive-looking water sources, including puddles that form after inclement weather. Geometry appears more vivid with proper texture from tessellation. Characters haven't been remodeled, but the game's graphical boost makes existing citizens look sharper and more detailed than before.

NEW ORLEANS -- Republican control of the Senate means that one the most fanatical climate change deniers in Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is now in line to head the Senate subcommittee that oversees science funding. This is not good news for supercomputing.

This is the year you and yours should take up 3D printing. Why? Because it’s cool, because 3D printing is the future, and machines have fallen in price and risen in quality. In short, 2015 will be the year of 3D printing. Here are some amazing printers to help you ring it in in style.

CNET contacted Mattel for comment and received a statement from Lori Pantel, vice president of global brand marketing for Barbie: "The 'Barbie I Can Be A Computer Engineer' book was published in 2010. Since that time we have reworked our Barbie books. The portrayal of Barbie in this specific story doesn't reflect the Brand's vision for what Barbie stands for. We believe girls should be empowered to understand that anything is possible and believe they live in a world without limits. We apologize that this book didn't reflect that belief. All Barbie titles moving forward will be written to inspire girls imaginations and portray an empowered Barbie character."

To recap, A Journey through Middle-earth features an interactive map of Middle-earth built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can zoom in to explore locations, learn their history and meet the characters. Now, to mark the conclusion to the Hobbit trilogy , Google has given the Chrome experiment a refresh, introducing a battle game where you can pit your wits against friends.

"In the cathedral of the wild, we get to see the best parts of ourselves reflected back to us." Boyd Varty, a wildlife activist, shares stories of animals, humans and their interrelatedness, or "ubuntu" — defined as, "I am, because of you." And he dedicates the talk to South African leader Nelson Mandela, the human embodiment of that same great-hearted, generous spirit.

Jax’s conversation with Juice in the prison will go down as a highlight of the series for me. Charlie Hunnam and Theo Rossi were exceptional. As compelling as it was to watch Hunnam portray Jax’s anguish, Rossi matched him with Juice’s resignation at his fate as he confirmed what Jax had learned from Abel. For a moment I thought Juice might withhold the truth; there was a feeling that the balance of power between the two men had shifted and I thought Juice might try to keep things hidden a little while longer. It was a relief when Juice finally unburdened his soul and told Jax everything. I don’t know if I would have been able to forgive the show if they had delayed for one more minute Jax getting confirmation of what really happened.

As part of Apple's revamp of its recently acquired Beats Music streaming service, the company plans to bundle Beats directly into iOS, reports Financial Times . Apple will bundle the subscription music service it acquired from Beats into its iOS operating system early next year, instantly making it available on hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads – and ramping up pressure on Spotify, the market leader in music streaming.
The inclusion of the paid-for Beats service in an iOS software update could happen as early as March, according to people familiar with the situation. The report notes that Beats will continue to be a paid service and will likely be rebranded under the iTunes umbrella. The move could come alongside the launch of the Apple Watch, with users able to push Beats music from their iPhones to the wearable device.
While Apple has praised the Beats Music model, highlighting the curation aspect of the service as a major reason for acquiring the company, Beats has struggled to gain subscribers. Estimates put Beats' subscriber base at just 110,000, dwarfed by several other services such as Spotify that offer both free and paid options.

One year after exploding on the scene, it looks like Coin , the YC-backed startup that wants to replace all your bank cards with a universal card, is finally shipping its product to some early backers after a long, long wait. The company previously said shipments would begin this summer. It is now the middle of November.

Netflix did not comment on the accusations that have dogged Cosby for years, nor did it elaborate on when it might consider airing "Bill Cosby 77." NBC has also declined to comment on the state of its sitcom, which would once again feature Cosby as a family patriarch on the network that for eight years soared on the wings of The Cosby Show .

You know that epic feeling when your flight ends and you finally get to your destination? Now imagine taking those first steps off the plane, syncing your phone, and getting a $1200 bill for airplane internet use. That's what happened to me on Singapore Airlines today.
I had an otherwise enjoyable flight, but the sticker shock of being gouged $1200 made me feel like I was deplaning from Total Bastard Airlines , that old skit from SNL where they kick you off the plane with a "Buy BYE!"
So what does it take to rack up $1200 of internet use? In my case, just 155 page views, mostly to my email. I know this because for the first time I counted up my page views to see where all the dollars went. I wish I could blame an addiction to NetFlix or some intellectual documentary that made me $1200 smarter. However, the Singapore Airlines internet was painfully slow, so videos would be impossible and that means I didn’t get any smarter… except about how to charge a lot of money for stuff. I did learn that.
At one point, I spent about an hour uploading one 4mb powerpoint doc.

In case you're just, ahem, wading in, the origin of Earth's water has been a great, unsolved scientific mystery. Baby Earth was a hot ball of magma, so any water on its surface would have evaporated in space. According to one leading theory, at least some of our water came from an onslaught of meteorites crashing into Earth. But did those meteorites start off as comets (balls of dust and ice that melt into a tail near the sun) or asteroids (intact pieces of rock)?

Between the release of the Moto X , Droid Turbo and taking on a new taskmaster , Motorola Mobility has been extremely busy. With no signs of slowing down, the former Google company just announced the availability of the Keylink, a Bluetooth-powered fob that helps you find your misplaced keys or smartphone.

Kik Messenger announced on Wednesday that it has raised $38.3 million in funding to hire more engineering and business development staff, and to better compete against the growing number of messaging apps.

Ryan: How powerful is it that this language just takes a few marks and all of a sudden a completely new experience is read? It’s not surprising that that comes from languages that have a basis in graphic symbols—from Japan or from China. Those languages are constructed with similar types of images. A tree looks like a tree in Chinese (木), and a forest is multiple trees (森林). It’s very appropriate that we’re following the lead of languages that are more or less graphic. It’s actually really, really powerful. This was not a way to communicate 10 years ago, but now there’s nary an email that I don’t send out without a smiley face or something on it.

(Reuters) - Creditors of GT Advanced Technologies complained in a bankruptcy court filing that the sapphire company may have gotten too little in its proposed settlement with Apple Inc over legal claims stemming from a deal to supply sapphire screens.

Outside of the engine bay, nearly all of the ATS-V's body panels are unique when compared to the standard ATS. From wider fenders and rocker panels to lower and more aggressive fascias at the front and rear ends, we're assured that there's a function to the Caddy's sharper form. The nose features larger intakes to cram air through the radiators and into the engine and the hood features venting to help draw out heat and keep everything running coolly. The suspension, wheels, tires, and more have all been given a performance tweak as well to keep up with the engine.

When we talk about design — of software or hardware — we often think about the obvious things, such as the size or shape of an object, or specific features that we like or don’t like. But writer and designer Craig Mod told attendees at Gigaom’s RoadMap conference in San Francisco Wednesday that some of the most important elements of design are the things that most users will never even be aware of.

As expected , the British telecommunications regulator Ofcom has decided to free up spectrum in the 700MHz for mobile broadband use. Already used for 4G/LTE in the U.S. and Asia, this spectrum is great for long-range deployments and providing in-building coverage, and it’s a couple of years since an EU-level report recommended freeing it up across Europe. In the U.K., the spectrum will be available for mobile broadband use by the start of 2022 at the latest. Free-to-view digital TV and wireless broadcast microphones will need to switch to other frequencies, though. Ofcom also recently decided to free up more high-capacity 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz spectrum for mobile broadband use in a couple years’ time.

When I was deciding whether to get an iPhone 6, Apple Pay was the most persuasive feature. Apple Pay works (remarkably seamlessly) on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It’s available to the iPhone 5 range of devices, but only in conjunction with the upcoming Apple Watch. And it can be used for in-app purchases on some iPads. But right now, the only way to get the full experience of Apple Pay in stores is with one of the newest generation of iPhones. Here’s how it works. You register your supported credit cards in the device’s Passbook app. When you want to buy something from a retailer that supports Apple Pay, you just point your device at the near field communication (NFC) payment terminal, and your payment information is delivered from your iPhone to the payment terminal over a radio frequency connection. Then you just do a fingerprint scan on your phone’s TouchID sensor to verify your identity. If all is OK, your phone vibrates and tells you the transaction was approved. It all can be done in a single motion. Note that you may still need to sign a receipt as well, depending on the merchant and the amount of the purchase.

So, after this page, we— Hey, where did you go? Oh, I see you. You're on the floor, face down, having given up. Yeah, we did that, too. Is it because it took two girls to reboot a computer? I feel bad for every time I made fun of my mother using technology, because right now some mom is having to read this book to her daughter, and after the "weird" blinking screen and reboot, she's having to describe the computer's state as: "nothing happens." Are you still on the floor because Barbie wears a flash drive around her neck? And that it's a giant pink heart? At least Skipper's doing her best to help the situation by pouring her sister some juice. Girls can be so helpful in the kitchen.

is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 40 million unique visitors worldwide and 19 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.

Regardless of the reason, no matter how reprehensible these codified links might be, they demonstrate another part of algorithmic culture. A single human showing explicit bias can only ever affect a finite number of people. An algorithm, on the other hand, has the potential to impact the lives of exponentially more.

The B2 is essentially a Bluetooth version of the A2+ speakers, with identical specs for the internals. There are two 2.75-inch Kevlar woofers, a pair of 20mm silk dome tweeters, and a 60W amp just like the A2+s. But it actually takes a step up from the A2+ speakers, too, offering a 24-bit built-in DAC as opposed to the 16-bit DAC found in the A2+s. We haven’t had any ears-on time with the B2s just yet, but in the FAQ section for the speakers, Audioengine gets humblebraggy about the low end, claiming “deep, tight bass” without any distortion or processing.